By Angel Nuñez
YOU KNOW YOU ARE AN OLD TIMER SANPEDRANO IF
You had a Garifuna (Carib) as a teacher during your primary school days. Everyone remembers their Garifuna teachers because they were good teachers and strict disciplinarians. As disciplinarians they resorted to the whip to impart order, respect and good behavior. I remember my last Garifuna teacher in Standard six, one Mrs. Palacio, who gave me and my friend Eliezer Rivero a good whipping for play fighting during recess and some tattletale reported us to the principal.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A MODERN DAY SANPEDRANO IF
You remember your teachers for many other good things but not for their whipping because whipping in schools is now prohibited by government laws.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE AN OLD TIMER SANPEDRANO IF
You wore two or more pairs of short pants under your long pants to ease the sting from that sash cord whip or stick or leather belt from one of your male teachers? Oh what pleasant memories the days of severe whipping in school! The whipping for poor discipline or rude behavior was equally severe as that for not knowing your spelling or your mathematical tables. What torment! Now that I think about it, I think some boys permanently used to wear those extra pair of short pants. Some children used to place some exercise books inside their pants, but the teachers could detect that from the sound of the whipping. And for that they got a double dose. How terrible!
YOU KNOW YOU ARE A MODERN DAY SANPEDRANO IF
For poor discipline you get to sweep the classroom or pick up some garbage in the school yard, or better yet you get to write some lines with a message up to one thousand times. Certainly the punishment used today is a whole lot more pleasant than back then.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE AN OLD TIMER SANPEDRANO IF
You remember going to the store and leaving your doors at home wide open. In fact old timers used to sleep with their doors and windows wide open to be able to enjoy the fresh ventilation of the Caribbean Sea. Old timers used to leave the laundry on the clothes line in the yard overnight.
MODERN DAY SANPEDRANO?
Cho, don’t ever dream of doing that or you’ll be so sorry you took the chance of leaving your house with the doors open.
And since we are talking about discipline as we lived it twenty five years ago, we can recall the good lashing we got from parents for rude behavior, and this whipping could come from one’s grandparents and uncles. To tell the truth even the police officers were allowed to whip rude children. I am so glad that with the quality of present day police officers, they are not allowed to whip children on the street.
25 Years Ago Books Can Be Purchased At:
-Ambergris Today -Lala’s Store -Chico’s Meat Shop -Pampered Paws -Ambergris Jade -San Pedro BTB Office -Aquarious Salon (Kim) -S.P. Town Library -Di Bush -Richies Stationery -San Pedrano’s Stationery
Contact the Author at: nunez_nest@yahoo.com
